


Been traveling oh so long

by Skoll



Series: A constant reminder [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, FrostIron - Freeform, Loki Has Issues, M/M, Odin's A+ Parenting, Pre-Slash, Slightly bastardized Norse mythology, Soulmates, Tony wasn't the only one who got the shitty end of the soulmate stick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-04
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-12-04 08:12:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/708505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skoll/pseuds/Skoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the story goes, Odin, in the days when the worlds were new, used his knowledge of runes to give a gift to the nine worlds.  Through Odin's gift, any being with a soul on the nine worlds could find the one match of their soul, their perfect pair, bound to them by the World Tree itself.  Each of the nine races received Odin's gift in a different form; yet all beings with souls received that gift in some way.</p><p>Why, then, Loki wonders, is he so far into adulthood, and yet unmarked?</p><p>(Or: In a world where everything with a soul receives a mark linking them to their soulmate, Loki reaches adulthood with no sign of the rune that all Aesir use to find their soulmates.  Without any better explanation, Loki is convinced he's a monster long before he learns of his Jotunn heritage.)</p><p>Loki's POV companion to my last Tony/Loki soulmate snippet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Been traveling oh so long

**Author's Note:**

> Seeing as basically everyone who commented on the last story in this series wanted to get Loki's POV on this whole situation, I decided to deliver. Don't worry, guys, this won't be the last work of the series either.
> 
> On the Norse mythology in this story: I grew up on Norse mythology, so yes, I do actually know how the stories are supposed to go. Seeing as Marvel decided to warp that mythology for the comics, I only feel slightly guilty further warping it for my self-indulgent story purposes. 
> 
> I hope anyone who reads enjoys.

It is Frigga they send to finally breach the topic with him when silence on the matter is no longer feasible. Loki supposes he should not be surprised. In the end, he has ever had more in common with his mother; try as he might to be more like Thor or the Allfather, he is not as they are. His talents lie in magic first and the battlefield secondarily—and though he is skilled enough with a blade or a spear, he knows himself to be not half the warrior his brother is.

Sometimes, he wonders. Is it that which makes him so inferior that his skin must go unmarked, even now? Is he simply not warrior enough—or, to frame it in the unkind words the Aesir do not shy from using with him, not man enough—to bear the mark of Odin's Gift, as he should?

He can never quite believe this to be true, however, for women also bear the Gift on their skins. Seamstresses, magic workers, healers and women warriors all bear the mark. Anything that also has a soul wears Odin's Gift, among the Aesir. And it is that, most of all, which troubles Loki's sleep.

So they send Frigga, when Loki is on the very edge of his ability to bear his unmarked skin with silence, and the Aesir are just as close to branding him soulless altogether. “Loki,” she says, gentler than anyone else could be, and lays a hand on his arm, “have you considered the possibility that the mark simply will not come?”

Loki cannot hear it. “It will come,” he says, with all his strength behind the words. “I am Aesir, am I not, and Odin's son besides? No Aesir is ever without the Gift. I shall be no different.”

Frigga's expression seems to draw in on itself, tightening minutely, as if there are words she is holding back against her better judgment. In that moment, she seems to hurt on his behalf; and Loki will accept no pity, even here, even from his mother. “Loki,” she says, and Loki withdraws his arm from her grip, causing her to fall silent.

“You'll see, mother,” he says, and makes his expression carry the lie with a smile. “The mark will come, in time. Perhaps as soon as tonight.” His voice and his face speak of hope, optimism, confidence—Loki feels the effort of making them so. “All things in time, as you so often told me in my childhood,” he says, and then, with a wink to his mother, he calls on his magic to spirit him away, to make him vanish from this conversation he cannot find the strength to have.

Loki's silvertongue carries its own price—he always knows when he speaks a lie, though no one else can tell the difference. 

He lies, that day, when speaking of his hope. Loki has long known better.

The mark does not come.

…

In his childhood, when things were simpler, Loki loved to hear the story told. It reached a point of near infuriation to everyone around him, in true. The majority of Aesir children, his brother included, listened dutifully to the tale, and then promptly put it out of mind: never Loki, though. 

“Tell me again, mother,” Loki said, sitting at his mother's side as Thor ran through yet another series of weapons drills in the training arena below. The rhythmic sound of his brother's long sword splitting the air had long become white noise to Loki, so common he scarcely heard it at all. 

“Loki,” Frigga said, equal parts fond and exasperated. “Should you not be below, learning with your brother?” Her hands moved deftly as she spoke, skeins of thread becoming woven fabric almost faster than Loki's eyes could follow.

In true, Loki was far more interested in remaining there, at his mother's side, watching thread weave itself to fabric, baring patterns of magic to the eye of anyone skilled enough to look. Even then, though, he understood that his fascination with magic was not the norm among the men of Asgard—and though he was yet a boy, Loki knew what it was to bear the responsibilities of a man. So he simply said, “I have no interest in learning to wield a sword, mother, and have done my training with knives for the day. Tell me again.”

Frigga looked up from her weaving and met his eyes, and Loki felt something spark in the air at that matched gaze. Some part of his fledgling magic meeting hers, perhaps—though Loki had yet to come into his magic at that point of his boyhood, it had always been there, waiting for him. “Very well,” she said, finally, and Loki smiled, openly and honestly, because in those days he still could. “You know the tale nearly as well as I, now. Where should I begin?”

“Tell me of Odin's sacrifice,” Loki said, and Frigga shook her head, smiling.

“Very well, then, little prince,” Frigga said, and began.

…

When all the worlds were scarcely older than you are now, Loki, Odin One-Eyed had already begun his quest for wisdom. His eye, he had given as tithe at Mimir's Well—for that sacrifice, he drank of the water there, deep under the roots of Yggdrasil. From the water, he gained both foresight and wisdom. As is often the case with wisdom, gaining some drove him to understand that which he yet lacked, and gave him knowledge of the next sacrifice he must make for the sake of that wisdom.

Knowing of what he must do, Odin then climbed up from the roots of Yggdrasil to the body of the great World Tree; and, there, he took his spear and affixed himself to the tree, hanging himself upside down from the tree itself.

For nine days, he remained there. Without water, without food, and pierced with his spear, he spent those nine days in terrible agony. No other of his kind could have borne as much. By the ninth day, the pain was such that even Odin himself knew not whether he would survive it.

Yet, at the very last moment, when Odin could bear no more, and death was surely upon him, Odin felt himself come free of the spear, and begin to fall. Gone was the agony, gone was the pain of the sacrifice—all that was left was the feeling of that fall. 

I cannot say how far he fell—for the roots of Yggdrasil go very deep, deeper than any Aesir can ever hope to know. I know only that, during that fall, Yggdrasil itself gave Odin a gift, the reward for his nine days of sacrifice. When he finally came back from that long fall, Odin returned with knowledge of the runes, the writing that shapes the world.

He returned, also, with knowledge of the ways of Yggdrasil, knowledge that no other would ever earn. He saw, then, for the first time, that it is Yggdrasil's way to spread the roots of the World Tree ever farther, and that every being that walks the worlds with a soul is bound to those roots. And he saw that each and every being that passed through Yggdrasil's branches was bound by those roots not only to the World Tree itself, but also to another living being that walked the worlds. 

In his wisdom, Odin used that newfound knowledge to help those beings of the many worlds. With his runes, he gave to each of the nine worlds a way of finding the match to which Yggdrasil bound them. To Muspellsheim, Niflheim, Jotunheim, Vanaheim, Alfheim, Midgard, Svartalfaheim, and Helheim, he gave each a unique mark, that they might find their match so long as they traveled the branches of Yggdrasil. 

To Asgard, to the Aesir over which Odin Allfather would rule for all of time, Odin gave a special gift. To them, he gave each a rune, marked into their very flesh, which would appear when they came of age—and that rune would be as a lodestone, drawing them ever towards the one who Yggdrasil had made their match. In his wisdom and his love, Odin favored the Aesir with that kindness.

So it is today that every Aesir who travels the branches of Yggdrasil is born with a match, and also with the rune on their skin that will allow them to find that match. Odin himself found me by his runes, and so it is that your father and I came to be paired. And so it is that one day, little prince, you shall also find your match, when Odin's Gift comes upon you.

So it has been, since the day of Odin's sacrifice; and so shall it be, until the Ragnarok is upon us.

…

Perhaps it goes unspoken that Loki has long since lost his fondness for that particular tale.

…

Thor, of course, finds his match within the month of the appearance of the Gift.

Loki is at dinner with his mother and the Allfather, discussing strategy with Odin—for he has just taken up use of the spear, then, perhaps more out of respect for his father than out of any genuine interest—when Thor comes crashing in through the doors, calling out. “Father! Mother!” his brother booms, a beaming smile spread across his golden face. It does not escape Loki's notice that Sif trails behind him, her hand clasped in Thor's, with perhaps a little more caution in her expression. “My match is found!”

They are none of them surprised, Loki thinks. His mother, most of all, seems to have expected this—she immediately smiles widely, and steps down from the table to catch Thor up in an embrace, and Sif only moments later in an equally genuine clasp. “My congratulations!” Frigga says, all delight. “It had always been my hope that you two might wed.”

The first surprising moment comes then, as Thor and Sif look to each other, with an expression of something other than joy. “Ah,” Thor says, in a tone that suggests he is casting about for subtlety, and has suddenly realized he possesses none.

Sif, brave Sif, is the one to speak. “I thank you for your kind wishes, my queen,” she says, with a slight bow, “but we are a warrior's match, not a love match.” Frigga's bright smile dampens, somewhat, at that—Odin's expression simply changes, no more or less unreadable than it was before.

Loki himself must suppress the expression of surprise which attempts to cross his face. A warrior's match is not uncommon between two men who find themselves matched—regardless of the bonds of Yggdrasil, not all men are willing to bind themselves in love, and seek instead a closer bond of camaraderie, both on the battlefield and off. Yet, between a man and a woman who find themselves matched, anything but a love match is all but unheard of. What Sif suggests is beyond uncommon; and, worse, it harms both their chances to make a good match, as Loki knows his mother is undoubtably fearing at this moment.

It is Loki, who first finds the strength to smile. “Then my congratulations are meant only more fervently, brother,” Loki says, stepping forward. “The pair of you will be a force unmatched on the battlefield.” That much, at least, is true. Thor and Sif were strong warriors alone, when the remnants of the argument over Sif's worth as a warrior hung between them. United, they will be nigh unstoppable.

Thor looks relieved, above all else. “Thank you, brother,” he says, and reaches forward with his free arm to clasp Loki's arm, grip nearly tight enough to hurt. “You do us a kindness.”

Loki smiles. “The least I can do, brother,” he says, and if there is anything ungenuine in his tone, then Frigga's renewed outpourings of congratulations a moment later serve to put that tone out of everyone's memories.

…

Loki cannot help but wonder, when he is alone in the dark of his bed with his thoughts for company.

Loki has traveled the branches of Yggdrasil, perhaps more extensively than any other of the Aesir save his father. He has seen the nine worlds, has shaped his magic around him as illusion so that none from those worlds will see him as Aesir. He has seen, on Muspellsheim, beings of fire come together with their matches in explosions of heat fit to reshape the earth on which they stand. He has seen creatures of mist tangle together in clouds of freezing steam on Niflheim. He has seen what it looks like to find a match on many a world; and once, even, he saw two Jotunn find each other, heard cracks as if ice thawed in them when they touched, and saw the fluid within their markings flow as blood for the first time. He has traveled the branches of Yggdrasil and seen many a pairing join.

Yet, well into his majority, Loki himself goes unmarked, unpaired, unworthy of Odin's Gift. Alone, of all his kind.

He wonders, at first, whether this is because he travels by other means than simply the Bifrost. Many of the Aesir do not even know of the other ways, but Loki has always known of their existence; it is as if, for all his life, he has felt called to the secret ways of movement between the worlds, to the secret paths no one else might find, as if traveling by them far enough might at last bring his Gift upon him. He wonders whether traveling by these unknown branches of Yggdrasil has made him unworthy of a mark. Yet Odin himself traveled by paths other than the Rainbow Bridge, and his runes are marked on his skin to this day, undiminished by time. This thought is folly, Loki knows.

There are darker wonderings still, though. Wonderings that Loki mislikes admitting to, even to himself. 

Every being with a soul, which walks the branches of Yggdrasil, will find its match. 

Loki calls his magic into light, to break the darkness, and his voice, to break the silence. “These thoughts are foolhardy,” he says, castigating himself. “It will do no good to think of them, particularly here in the dark.” Everything seems more dire in these small hours of the night, Loki knows. “Sleep,” he tells himself.

He lies a long time awake.

…

And then, after centuries of unknowing, he receives his answers in a single cold touch which fails to freeze him, and the flush of blue under his own skin.

…

He steals into the depths of the Allfather's vault, because he finds himself unwilling to believe the evidence of his own two eyes. He, who prides himself on seeing truth and warping it to his purposes, would rather have seen wrong, this once. He would rather be spared the truth. Just once, Loki would like to be spared.

He touches the casket of ancient winters, and his skin betrays him. 

Before he even turns, he knows Odin is there. It seems Odin must bear witness to every moment of Loki's weakness. “Were you ever going to tell me?” Loki asks, and despite himself his voice sounds hurt, not angry.

Odin simply says, “Loki,” but it is as if his name bears the weight of worlds, now. For the first time, Loki supposes he knows which worlds those are. 

“No,” he says, vehemently, “no, you cannot say my name alone. You owe me answers, Allfather.” He steps closer to the man who is not his father, and steps again; he is slightly gratified to see Odin begin to step backwards before seeming to think better of it. Yes, now he and Odin both know precisely what Loki is capable of. “Tell me,” Loki says, “how long were you content to let me think myself soulless, rather than tell me what I am? Granted, I've now traded one sort of monstrosity for another, but—would it have been so much worse, to simply tell me?”

Odin looks, for the first time in Loki's long memory, pained. “I never meant for you to think you were without a soul,” he says, with quiet adamance that Loki can nearly, nearly believe. “You are my son—” and Loki cannot help the painful, humorless bark of laughter that fights its way from his throat, “—and I wished only to protect you.”

“Bad enough I am the stuff of children's nightmares,” Loki says, “but you would have had me alone. You would have denied me the match of my very soul. Did it suit your purposes, to have me so alone? Was I better manipulated to your needs because I so desperately wanted, just once, to be—” yet that is too pathetic to say, even in this moment, angry as Loki is. He falls to silence.

Gently, Odin says, “My son. When I found you, abandoned by Laufey, your own father, it was not only because of your size that you were abandoned. It was because the markings on your skin meant nothing, in the Jotunn tongue. And when I picked you up, and you turned to an Aesir before my very eyes, I hoped that meant that you might find your match among the Aesir, and be truly a son of my people.”

“Matchless, then, among both the Jotunn and the Aesir,” Loki says, more to himself than the Allfather. “Perhaps you might have done me a kindness, in my youth, and simply explained that I was worthless.”

“My son,” Odin says, stepping forward, and that is too far, that is more than Loki can bear.

“You have no right to call me that!” he shouts, loudly enough that it resounds from the high ceiling of Odin's vault, loudly enough that the sound burns at his throat.

It is to the sound of those echoes that Odin collapses against the stone.

…

Loki will not be without worth. He will not. If Yggdrasil has not seen fit to extend him a match, to give him an anchor among the nine worlds, then Loki will make his own point of anchor.

If he is the king of Asgard, no one will name him worthless. If he cannot have—he shies from the word, even within his own mind—if he cannot have everything a match implies, then he will at least have power.

Loki will make his own worth, as no one else has seen fit to give him any.

**Author's Note:**

> As I said, this won't be the last work in the series. If you got this far and enjoyed, though, please drop a comment as to whether you'd prefer a full-length sequel, or a continued series of pieces of about this length. I can go either way. Any other comments or criticism you'd like to leave would also be deeply appreciated. I love hearing from you guys.


End file.
